In a manufacturing environment there are typically multiple processing steps to process materials, perform various machining operations, inspections, and cleaning steps to produce a manufactured product. In order to understand which steps have been completed and if any issues have been identified, a collection of papers typically travels with parts through the processing steps. Paper-based tracking can be effective for relatively simple manufacturing tasks; however, paper-based tracking may increase the risk of incomplete tracking such that the status of parts in progress is not readily known, particularly from a remote location. Paper-based tracking can also slow down manufacturing process step transitions, as notes are written and subsequent processing steps are determined.